Community Portal

When a website needs to engage a whole community:

1. Know the audience. Surprising discoveries come from existing analytics— in this case, Smartphone penetration in a remote rural community was much higher than expected, resulting in a whole different approach to the site.2. Speak the language. While English may be dominant in business, it’s not the primary language in every community. The web can reach non-English speakers and help to preserve native languages.3. Actively engage. By budgeting for routine updates, a website can remain relevant and keep the community engaged with fresh content, stories, and resources.

Mobile is native

When the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community approached Thinkfeelrespond for a web proposal for its health system, we started by studying native ways.

We wanted whatever changes we made to feel authentic and native to the community. We also wanted the website to tell the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community's unique story: how the KBIC combines traditional methods with contemporary science to provide its tribe members the best possible health outcomes.

We launched this site on Webflow’s fantastic high-speed hosting infrastructure. The result has been an accessible editing interface for the client and reliable, highly-responsive hosting for all.With a better understanding of how the community mixed traditional medicine and modern tech, we crafted a website that did the same — taking design cues plus the color palette from very local sources.

New additions

In 2018, we embedded a custom google map to share some of the best locations for local activity. This is combined with an invitation to contribute member images and locations that can be enjoyed by the whole community. In mobile view, the locations can be opened in Google Maps for personalized turn-by-turn directions.